The Royal Air Force has extended the life of its legacy
Windows NT
4.0 network to gain further value from its systems. The move
comes as it waits for the Ministry of Defence to finalise plans for
its next generation of IT infrastructure.
The RAF has developed technology to adapt the NT 4.0 network,
which Microsoft stopped supporting at the end of 2005, to enable
its 22,000 users to access modern applications, including the RAF's
Oracle HR system.
The network, which links 40 RAF bases across the UK, is due to
be upgraded as part of the Ministry of Defence's long-term plan to
connect the armed forces through the Defence Information
Infrastructure (DII).
The RAF needed to keep its existing NT 4.0 network running and
develop a cost-effective, efficient way to roll-out new
applications while work goes ahead on the DII.
Mark Morrison, assistant project manager at the RAF, said, "It
was not an option for us to upgrade the network, as we have to wait
for the DII."
It would have been too expensive and labour-intensive to visit
each base to install the new application, said Morrison. Instead,
the RAF opted to build a centralised software deployment
infrastructure on top of the NT 4.0 network.
Central software distribution proved difficult on the legacy
system as it did not provide Active Directory, available in newer
versions of Windows, which can be used by administration staff to
detect desktops remotely.
Morrison's solution was to use Microsoft's Systems Management
Server, modified to support NT 4.0. The RAF hired Computacenter
Services to build a proof of concept software distribution system
that worked on NT 4.0 in conjunction with Systems Management
Server.
The team built a software distribution server hosted on Windows
2003. The server uses a tool called Netlogon to detect and target
PCs on the RAF network. Computacenter Services also modified the NT
4.0 log-in script to ensure machines that were switched off could
be identified when the user next logged in.
Bola Rotibi, senior analyst at Ovum, said, "The RAF has years of
embedded knowledge in managing NT 4.0."
With such legacy systems, Rotibi said organisations generally
developed excellent maintenance processes which enabled the system
to be run cost-effectively and efficiently.
Along with the Oracle HR application, the RAF has also used the
software distribution server to upgrade from Office 2000 to Office
2003. It is currently evaluating an upgrade to Adobe Acrobat 8.0
Reader.
The £4 billion over 10 years Defence Information Infrastructure
which began in 2000 aims to provide a fully networked and managed
service for the MOD. It covers the maintenance of existing
networks, convergence strategy plus the capability to exchange and
share electronic information across with the integration of
systems.
Microsoft stopped support for Windows NT 4.0 at the end of 2005,
athough user pressure has forced the supplier to offer premium
support.
MoD awards £4bn contract to EDS
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